Officials re-evaluate recycling programs

In the course of a single day last Saturday, roaming clean-up crews pulled 65 tons of discarded furniture from the sidewalks and alleys near Ohio State University.

Elsewhere in the city, punctured inflatable pools, broken trampolines and worn-out tents are filling up public recycling bins.

It's the season of junk.

“A majority of our waste comes through during this time of the year,” said Kyle O’Keefe, innovation and programs director for the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio.

The problem with garbage, waste management officials say, is that it usually gets tossed without a thought.

But keeping as much waste out of landfills as possible requires concerted effort and, often, going extra lengths to bring items to one of a few local spots that can reuse or recycle them.

“It’s not as if anybody lacks access to recycling,” said Nicole Sintov, an assistant professor of behavior, decision making and sustainability at Ohio State University. “They’re throwing everything away most likely.”

As the annual waste-producing blitz winds down, state and city officials are re-evaluating longstanding programs in hopes of helping residents and businesses put their trash where it belongs.

Public recycling bins

Pat Murphy knows that too many people treat recycling bins as dumpsters. Up to a quarter of the materials thrown into public recycling containers are not recyclable.

Murphy — who services a portion of SWACO’s 40-plus public drop-off sites — often spends a half-hour clearing junk from around and inside of the bins before he can actually get to collecting recyclable material. He said he's fished ceramic plates, spray paint, auto parts and paddle boats from the public bins.

“Nothing shocks me anymore. It’s an area for people to get rid of their stuff,” said Murphy. “They see a box and they think they can throw whatever they want in it.”

That misuse, along with a dip in the drop-off program’s popularity and an increase in operational costs, has spurred SWACO to reconsider how and where it offers public recycling bins.

In July, SWACO pulled all drop-off sites from Columbus City Schools and another 18 sites before then. This fall, the agency plans to release a comprehensive proposal to reconfigure its network of public bins.

Curbside recycling’s arrival in Columbus five years ago played a major role in the drop-off program’s slump.

For one, curbside is a demonstrably more effective method for collecting recyclables, said Ernie Stall, of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency’s division of materials and waste management. In 2015, the household bins netted about 33,000 tons of material. That figure grew to 43,000 tons in 2016.

Only 8,574 tons of material were dropped off at public bins last year — about half the amount collected in 2011, prior to the city’s curbside-program debut.

Improper use of the public bins has only added to the strain, driving the cost per ton to operate SWACO’s drop-off program from $41.21 in 2011 to $94 last year.

And the agency has to employ a small team of people who hand sort the bins, haul away materials that aren't recyclable and investigate cases of illegal dumping.

Still, parts of the city are clamoring for more space for their recycling, said O’Keefe.

Certain neighborhoods, like the Clintonville and Northland areas, have complained about a lack of public drop sites. And across the city, multifamily homes, apartment complexes and even some single-family residences often generate more recycling than can fit in the city's curbside bins, which are picked up biweekly.

So while SWACO will continue to remove and relocate its public bins, there’s no plans to scrap the drop-off program.

“There’s still a lot more that need assistance,” said O’Keefe. “These containers offer an outlet for recycling. It’s not like the program can go away.”

Educated recycling

There’s no better example of recycling done wrong than the stretch when Ohio State students move in and out of off-campus housing.

In the neighborhoods skirting campus, sidewalks and grassy medians sprout cardboard boxes, abandoned ottomans and porch and other furniture.

To deal with the influx of trash, the city pulls crews from other districts to keep off-campus streets from clogging up with last year’s futons and rugs.

“It’s something that happens every year, but it’s still a Herculean task,” said Kevin Kidder, a spokesman for the city’s Public Service Department.

The city also provides students with a dozen free bulk-trash drop-off bins that will return to their homes in other parts of the city next week.

It's not that young tenants don’t know how to reuse or recycle stuff they don’t want anymore, said Dave Isaakson, a spokesman for Ohio State’s Student Life Office. It’s just not obvious how to do it properly, he said.

“I think we see that students today have a very high level of environmental consciousness, but sometimes they don’t know what to do with materials,” Isaakson said.

And it's true that a lot of daily refuse is tricky to recycle, and many everyday items require extra legwork.

Pizza boxes and glass bottles, for example, are fair game. But plastic clamshells, most coffee cups and Styrofoam containers are a no-go. (In fact, as of this summer, the closest place to recycle post-consumer Styrofoam is an hour's drive away.)

Usable furniture — a popular item littering recycling bins and alleyways year-round — needs to be hauled to organizations like the Furniture Bank of Central Ohio, Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Refrigerators, air conditioners, dehumidifiers and televisions have to be handled by professional waste services.

To keep plastic grocery bags out of landfills, they need to be brought to one of the dozens of retail locations that will accept and recycle them.

“One of the growing pains is making sure residents recycle the proper things,” said Stall. “That’s pretty much universal.”